Goulash....it's whats for dinner!

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a chef, nor do I play one in real life!  haha  But since I now have a family of 5 and I stay home with said family....I have been trying really hard to start cooking some decent meals.  Let's just say that a few years ago, we pretty much survived on box meals, frozen meals, and take out.  Hamburger Helper was even beyond me.

But I have made a lot of progress in the past couple years.  Last night I made goulash and by God...It was really good!!!  So....here's what I did....

I started out by bowling some elbow noodles.  While they were boiling, I put about a pound of hamburger and a chopped up green pepper in the skillet.

 Something about this picture just struck me....when I looked in the pan I just really liked the bright red of the meat and the bright green of the peppers.  It looked really pretty.

 Then I added a can of stewed tomatoes.

 And after that simmered for a bit, I added a jar of spaghetti sauce.  This is our new favorite sauce....it is delicious and locally made!

 Then add the noodles and let it all simmer together for a few minutes.

Then serve and eat!  Yum  

Day #15 ~ Getting Organized Challenge (Medicine/Vitamin Organization)

Ok...Day # 15...took all of about 5 minutes.  Just to be honest, I have to admit that I had started working on this one last week.  But anyway....here is the before:

 Obviously the left hand side is what I worked on last week.  Prior to that we had a basket that was full and jumbled with everything.  If you wanted band aids, you had to dig and good luck finding the antibiotic cream to go with them.  It was a pain!

 I'm not sure if you can tell but there are cookbooks on the right hand side of this one....I didn't even know I had these!  Also, when I pulled everything out....I found 5 months worth of heartworm prevention for the dog (all you pet owners know how much that stuff costs! )  Yay!

 Ahhhh....much better!

 This side didn't change much.  The meds are divided into, adult meds, bandages, and then kids meds.

Those boxes in the back are my son's asthma medicine.  It takes up a lot of room  but we have to have it on hand.  I never stacked it like that before...so much better.  This cabinet is so much better now!

No bathroom cabinets here, so lets organize my life!

Well....unfortunately we don't have a bathroom cabinet in the house.  We only have 1 bathroom (yes, for all 5 of us...but adding another is on my wish list) and the sink in there is a pedestal sink.  I have rearranged and reorganized the bathroom in the past few weeks (and I LOVE it).  But I still can't participate in today's challenge at A Bowl full of Lemons. 

Instead....I thought I might share some of my other newly founded and created organizing tools.  The first thing I have come up with is a meal plan.

I never would have guessed that I would use one....but let me tell you.  I have been using it for 2 weeks now and it is AWESOME!!!  It is so nice to be able to know what I am making for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday!  It takes maybe 5 mins to put together and then I know exactly what I need to buy at the grocery store (which saves money too!) and I know if I need to pull meat out of the freezer the night before.  And it takes so much stress out of my day.  Just having a plan is such a relief when it's been one of those crazy days (which it is A LOT!). 
    So, to make this handy dandy little meal chart...I just designed a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel (with inspiration from IHeart Organizing).  Then I matted it on some scrapbook paper and of course laminated it to make it durable and dry erasable (if thats a word).   Easy Peasy and cute too!

My next new organizing tool is a new calandar on the fridge.  I am going to make my best effort to write everything we have going on here.  So that we can all reference it at anytime.  So far, so good....but I only just bought it on Saturday.  =)

My last tool was that early last week I created a family schedule.  I used Microsoft Excel again, and mapped out our entire day.  I color coded each member of the family and scheduled out what each of us was doing at each hour of the day.  I know this sounds crazy and OCD (and I would have thought the same a month ago) but it really did help to see what we were spending our time on.  It was also useful to schedule out some specific family time.

I have to say that I am completely in love with my newly organized life.  I am also loving my freshly organized house.  I truly feel so much happier and calm! 

The Power of a candle

I never knew how powerful a candle could be.  Like so many weekends, the house had gotten a little messy this weekend.  I try not to waste precious family time on cleaning during the weekends.  Since I am a stay at home Mom, I do my best to keep the house up during the week.  The kitchen was getting pretty out of control this weekend.  And finding the motivation to clean it on a Sunday afternoon is tough!

Yesterday Katelin and I took some special time for the 2 of us.  We went to the mall and while we were there I returned some things to Bath and Body works.  I ended up exchanging some stuff for a couple candles (certain scents were 50% off).  I set one on the windowsill in the kitchen.

While Kevin was busy doing something outside, I lit the candle.  The wonderful creamy nutmeg scent started filling the house.  And before I knew it I was in the kitchen putting dishes away, wiping the counters, and decluttering the counter top.  And all because of a little candle.  I guess that would be proof that if you are happy in your space you are more likely to keep it looking nice!

Day #13 ~ Getting Organized Challenge (The Medicine Cabinet)

Day 13.....the medicine cabinet.   This isn't a very big space and yet I had been meaning to get to it for a while now.  We have a pedestal sink so we have like NO counter space.  Up until about last week sometime, we had one of those rubbermaid rolling carts right between the sink and toilet for my makeup, hair stuff, etc.  But Kevin always hated it.  So I reorganized and got rid of it.  But that meant that we also lost some usable "counter" space.  

Anyway....back to the med cabinet.  Here is the before:

 Emptied out.....Can we say GROSS!

My first attempt at reloading them.  I took out one shelf so that we could fit our toothbrushes in too.  I really like the 1 shelf option....but this set up just wasn't quite right...

 Added a small basket to the bottom shelf and moved things around (again) and I was much happier!

It's funny how organizing such a small space can make you feel so accomplished!  I feel like we will be able to get ready in the morning easier now!  Thanks Toni!!

On my own Today...a keepsake box

Today's Challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons is the spice cupboard....well....I don't really have one!  I am not much of a wiz in the kitchen so I don't have very many spices.  I just don't use them much!

So I figured I would just do my own thing today.  I think I will showcase my most recent project.  I have been more crafty in the past couple months than the rest of my life all combined.  I have always considered myself a NON-crafty person.  I don't feel like I am very creative or imaginative.  I wish I was more so.  But I have 3 kids now....which means in the future we will have A LOT of birthday parties to attend.  I figured now would be the time to figure out how to start making gifts.

I started with my niece's birthday which was on Christmas.  We celebrated it last weekend.  As I thought about what to make her, I tried to think of the things that I would have liked when I was a little girl.  And it came to me....I was always wanting to save special "treasure" but where do you keep them?

So I went to AC Moore (which is a lot like a Michaels) and bought a hat box and some mod podge.  I am now in love with Mod Podge!!  You can do anything with that stuff!!!!  It is awesome!   But anyway....originally I bought some tissue paper, as I had seen a You Tube video tutorial on how to rip it up and mod podge it.  I started on the inside of the lid.  It looked ok....but I wasn't thrilled with it.  I wanted a more personal and streamlined look.  So out I went to AC Moore again.  This time I bought some scrapbook paper.  Now we were getting some where.  I modpodged it like crazy.  One of the pieces of paper I had bought was a Tinkerbell piece (my niece loves her) and it had little sayings all over it.  So I pulled out my crafty scissors and cut out a bunch of the sayings and glued them on the lid.  I also had some letter stickers, so I spelled out her name.  (Now I have a cricut which would have been fun).

I then wrapped paper around the rim of the lid and then the outside of the box.  I guess I didn't cut the rim of the lid PERFECTLY because it stuck up just a little and I was afraid (actually it was Kevin, my husband, who pointed it out) that it would get caught or picked at and rip.  So out to JoAnns (this time) I went AGAIN!  I bought a couple different types of ribbon to put on the edge.  I hit the jackpot on this one sequin one.  It looked great and totally made the box!!!

And this is how it turned out:

 

(please don't mind my slippered foot haha)

What do you think?  I am pretty happy with how it turned out.  I am proud of it actually.  My plan is to make one for each of my kids and my nephew through-out this year for each of their birthdays.  I know that I would have liked something like this...I hope they do too!

What kinds of fun things have you all found to do with mod podge?  I am a newbie here so please share your ideas!




I am linking up to:

Day #11 ~ Getting Organized Challenge (The FREEZER)

When I first read what today challenge was, my first reaction was ugh!  But it really wasn't too bad.  We didn't have too much in there to begin with.  I did end up throwing some stuff out, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected.  (I love when that happens!)

So here is the before picture:

 Here it is all emptied out and cleaned.

 And then the after.  Not too drastic but it is better.

Now....since I was in there (and the baby was sleeping) I decided to go ahead and do the refrigerator too.  Now that was G-R-O-S-S!!!  But I am going to save the pics in case that is coming up in the challenge.  (If it doesn't, I promise I will share them anyway...even though it's pretty embarrassing!  So...stay tuned!